Geneva, 18 March 2013 – During a meeting with Philippe Douste-Blazy, Chair of the Executive Board of UNITAID and Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations on Innovative Financing for Development, and a representative of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, the administration of the Minister of Finance, Mozambique, confirmed the country’s commitment to implement both a small levy on air ticket sales and financial transactions to raise additional funding to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Mozambique will become the seventh African country to implement the air ticket levy for such a cause, following Cameroon, Congo,  Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius and Niger.

The official website of the 19th Conference of The Union Africa Region, which will be held in Kigali, Rwanda on 20-22 June 2013, is now open.

Re: Urgent recommendations to address and resolve ongoing shortages of tuberculosis drugs in the United States

The Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility has reduced the price of several second-line drugs it supplies for the treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) by up to 26% compared to 2011 prices, resulting in a decrease in the overall cost of treatment.

Tokyo, 15 March 2013 – Following Prime Minister Abe’s announcement today of Japan’s intention to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement negotiations, international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called on Japan and the rest of TPP negotiating countries to reject rules that threaten to dismantle internationally-agreed public health safeguards and restrict access to medicines in developing countries.

The World Health Organization and the Consortium to Respond Effectively to the AIDS/TB Epidemic (CREATE) convened their 7th CROI-affiliated HIV/TB research meeting on behalf of the TB/HIV Working Group of the Stop TB Partnership in Atlanta, Georgia USA on 3 March, 2013. The meeting discussed critical knowledge and research gaps on TB prevention among children and adults and drug interactions between new TB drugs and ART. Attended by some 100 participants, the meeting was convened by Dr Haileyesus Getahun of WHO and co-chaired by Dr Diane Havlir of UCSF and Chair of the Global TB/HIV Working Group and Dr Richard Chaisson, of Johns Hopkins and Director of CREATE.

Determining a fair and affordable price of bedaquiline is essential for timely approval and appropriate domestic and global access to the best possible therapeutic options for people with DR-TB.

The PreDiCT-TB consortium and the Critical Path to TB Regimens have announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding outlining plans to co-ordinate their activities in the area of TB drug development methodology.

Findings provide guidance for global policy and clinical approach in treatable disease that kills millions worldwide.

Few children at the paediatric tuberculosis hospital in Dushanbe look as active and healthy as Shirinmo. The little girl is bright and busy as she crawls across the waiting room floor. But get closer and you can hear that her breath comes in gasps and has a rattling sound. The devastating diagnosis: the nine-month-old is suffering from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a disease that spreads easily and, if left untreated, kills.